Quantitative evaluation of the consistency level of municipal solid waste policies in China

The practice of municipal solid waste (MSW) in developing countries like China is changing from mixed treat-ment to classified treatment, with the need of urban development. This variation calls for assessment of the MSW policies, in particular, whether the MSW policies formulated in the past can well guide the demand of the current MSW system. Quantitative evaluation of MSW policies from the perspective of policy consistency is conducive to systematically identifying common problems existing in policies and providing possible new ways for policy improvement. However, quantitative evaluation of MSW policies is under-represented in the existing literature. This paper employs the Policy Modeling Consistency Index (PMC-Index) approach and text mining technology to quantitatively evaluate the consistency level of China's 26 MSW policies, and comparatively analyze the common problems of 26 policies in the horizontal dimensions. The results indicate that sixteen policies belong to the good consistency level, ten pertain to the acceptable level. In other words, none is able to attain the perfect policy level. This demonstrates that while China's MSW policies are generally reasonable and consistent, there is some room for improvement. Further comparative analysis reveals that policy release agency, policy timeliness and policy instrument are main reasons for the results of policy imperfection. Thus, these three aspects may be the starting points to effectively improve China's MSW policies.